Following the 2023 publication Understanding LGBTQA+SB suicidal behaviour and improving support: insight from intersectional lived experience1, Switchboard Victoria and RMIT created a full day evidence-based lived experience training package for Hospital Outreach Post-Suicidal Engagement (HOPE) teams across Victoria. The training offered groundbreaking composite narratives that worked to provide visibility and understanding of LGBTIQA+SB lived experiences of suicidal distress.
This presentation will demonstrate how composite narratives built on lived experience research can offer deep awareness and understanding of LGBTIQA+SB experiences, as well as provide reflections on how this approach to training was able to create open spaces for learning.
A major barrier for LGBTIQA+ people seeking support when experiencing suicidal distress can be a lack of understanding from health professionals regarding the impact of the stigma and discrimination they have experienced over their lifetime. As such, this training was delivered in conjunction with a half day LGBTIQA+ Inclusive Practice session to establish a collective baseline knowledge of LGBTIQA+ history.
The bringing together of both training suites provided an avenue for building confidence in speaking about and understanding LGBTIQA+ communities. In addition, it meant participants had an already established space to then encounter personalised narratives through the training, which offered intersectional insights and bolstered participants’ abilities to work with LGBTIQA+SB people experiencing suicidal distress.
This approach was effective in creating spaces for participants to be able to share or express gaps in knowledge, articulate areas for growth, and be openly reflexive about their practice.